The Honorable Olympia
Snowe
The Honorable John Rockefeller
The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
The Honorable Gordon Smith

Dear Senators Snowe,
Rockefeller, Feinstein and Smith:

The undersigned organizations
representing cancer patient advocacy, provider and research organizations
strongly support your efforts to achieve Medicare coverage for oral anti-cancer
drugs through the Access to Cancer Therapies Act, S. 913. While we all
recognize the need for comprehensive prescription drug coverage for seniors,
S. 913 represents an important first step toward a broader benefit and
addresses an immediate need for beneficiaries with cancer.

Most anti-cancer
drugs are currently reimbursed by Medicare because they are administered
through injection by a health care provider and covered as a benefit under
Part B. As anti-cancer drug therapy is increasingly delivered in oral
form, however, life-extending medications will not be covered by the program.
Within recent weeks a new targeted therapy available only as an oral drug
was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to great acclaim from
the scientific and popular press, but it is not accessible for Medicare
beneficiaries even though it is much more effective and much less toxic
than current treatments.

S.913 would not only
address that shortcoming as more new drug therapies are approved as oral
agents, but would also cover widely used oral hormonal drugs for control
of breast and prostate cancer. This relief for seniors with cancer is
long overdue.

Limits on Medicare
coverage should not be allowed to influence treatment decisions for beneficiaries
facing life-threatening cancer. If enacted, S. 913 will help to ensure
that such decisions are made on the basis of good science and medicine
and the welfare of the patient, and not on considerations of cost. Your
leadership as original co-sponsors of this important legislation is much
appreciated by people with cancer, their families and their caregivers.